Recently, I listened to the Italian chefs Niko Romito and Salvatore Tassa in conversation about Italian food culture, and in particular the role of the trattoria. During the warm conversation, Romito, who is one of Italy’s most visionary chefs and whose Ristorante Reale in Abruzzo has three Michelin stars, spoke about the first time he ate at Tassa’s Nu’ Trattoria Italiana dal 1960 in Acuto, which is in the province of Frosinone about an hour south of Rome. Romito recalled the homely atmosphere and Tassa as an old-school host: welcoming, communicative and the conduit (which didn’t sound pretentious when he said it) between local traditions, producers and those who came to eat. But Romito also described a dish of onions, simply braised, but of such goodness that he couldn’t stop thinking about and imagining them. In fact, Romito credits those onions as being the starting point for one of his own most well-known dishes: “absolute” onion broth with parmesan-filled pasta and toasted saffron. Tassa returned the affection and respect, before both chefs reminded those of us listening that everything begins and ends with the ingredients.
On the bus on the way home, I kept thinking about Romito thinking about those braised onions, which led me to think about the times I have left a table in a trattoria, restaurant, cafe, pub, chip shop or friend’s house really thinking about something. And how those thoughts are quite rare and completely different from simply remembering a dish or liking something; they are vivid and intrusive thoughts. The deep-fried mashed potato and mozzarella ball from the canteen just under our flat last week; the gravy around the liver and onions at a local trattoria; hazelnuts on the salad at the same trattoria; a plate of green beans that tasted like butter; the honey dressing on a salad that has been nagging me since January.
